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With his mischievous gaze and sharp teeth, Labubu dolls of the Chinese brand Pop Mart triumphs throughout the planet, From the New York stores to the Rihanna and Dua Lipa bags, a great success of Beijing’s soft diplomacy.

Based in Beijing, this chain of stores, known by the collectible figures of different characters he sells, enrolls in the growing range of Chinese products successfully beyond its borders. Labubu have become the most attractive Chinese ambassadors in recent weeks, even in regions where the majority opinion towards the Asian giant is negative as North America and Western Europe.

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The dolls are “a bit rare, ugly, but very inclusive because people identify” with them, says AFP Lucy Shitova, an interior designer in a Pop store in London. For fear of customer agglomeration in front of their stores, now the Labubu are sold only online. Contrary to Japan and South Korea, recognized in the world for their cinema, their fashion and their music, China barely exports its cultural products, often braking by the censorship imposed by the Communist Party.

Nor do fashion companies place their brands in the high -end market, weighed by the prejudice of poor quality associated with the “Made in China.” “It is difficult for consumers in the world to perceive China as a nation Creator of brands, “says Fan Yang, a professor at the University of Maryland in the United States.

Labubu dolls.

Photo – Bloomberg.

The Tiktok effect

Pop Mart managed to overcome stereotypes and is now even a victim of falsifications. Also in recent years, high-end brands such as Shushu/Tong of “prêt-a-porter” or Songmont of bags were made hollow in the international market.

“It’s just a matter of time before other Chinese brands are recognizable worldwide, “says Yang. Thanks to viral successes such as Las Labubu,” Products and Image (from China) gain attractive among the youth Western, “says Allison Malmsten, an analyst at the Daxue Consulting Cabinet.

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If social networks help, the image of the Chinese giant could positively evolve as happened with “Japan between 1980 and 2010 with the Pokémon and the Nintendo,” he predicts. Before Labubu, the Tiktok application, conceived by the Chinese firm Bytedance, had opened the way by becoming the first almost indispensable Chinese product for world youth.

The platform “probably contributed to changing the perception of consumers to China,” says Joshua Kurlantzick, an expert from the American Referense Center on Foreign Relations. Tiktok claims to have More than one billion users in the world, including almost half of the population of the United States.

In the White House viewfinder, concerned about national security, the application was almost prohibited in the United States, which led many of its users in that country to Rednote, another Chinese platform that welcomed these “digital refugees” with open arms.

Labubu dolls.

Photo – Bloomberg.

Labubumanía

In Tiktok there are more than 1.7 million videos about Labubu dolls. This network has become an important dissemination vector of trends from China. All these cultural products can “improve the image of China as a country capable of producing attractive goods and services worldwide,” says Kurlantzick.

In parallel, the wear and tear of the image of the United States under the presidency of Donald Trump may also benefit the Asian giant, estimates Fan Yang. “The link that many establish between the apparent decline of American white power and the image improvement of China reflects to what extent they are intertwined in people’s minds,” he says.

In the case of Labubu, their success is awakening a growing interest in China among the youngest. In a small Pop attraction park in Beijing, an 11 -year -old Catarí, Maryam Hammadi, posed with his family this week before a statue of these dolls. “In my country, everyone loves Labubu,” he told AFP.

By AFP.